126 YEARS PRIOR...

Del Ammar was nervous as the sea parted in front of him. He stepped through and came out of the wall on the other side.

He knelt and bowed his head.

“Your Excellency.”

“Rise, friend. Come. Let us sit and chat.”

The scientist got back to his feet as two seats floated down toward them.

The Emperor looked tired. His body had aged and it looked so fragile. The hair had grown whiter, longer, thinner. Wrinkles riddled his face, bags hanging under his eyes.

It struck him for the first time that Nashadan Prime was dying. He had always known it would happen someday, of course, but it had seemed like something distant that might not even happen during his own lifetime.

Seeing the Emperor walk with so much difficulty was telling. Every once in a while, he would cough or grimace in pain. His body was aching.

And yet, today, he would have to add to the old man’s burden.

He sat across from the Emperor and waited quietly.

Nashadan Prime had closed his eyes and sat in silence for a long time. Finally, he sighed.

“I am old, friend. So very old. I remember times from before your great-grandfather was born. Sometimes I wonder...” His voice trailed off.

“Yes, Your Excellency?”

The Emperor’s eyes flickered open. He smiled a sad little smile. “Sometimes I wonder if I should have done things differently.” He waved a hand without lifting his arm from the armrest. “All this. How different would it be had I made other choices... Harder ones. Still.” He sighed again. “The past is where it should be. In the past. Let us talk about the future.”

Ammar shifted in his seat. Nodded.

“Yes. The future. About that, Your Excellency... I have distressing news to report.”

“Oh?”

“The Gandoran Drill...”

“What of it?”

“I have determined its nature. Well, to some extent.”

“Wonderful!”

Ammar frowned. “I don’t think it is, Your Excellency.”

“What worries you so?”

He had turned the words in his mind a hundred times, yet still he wavered.

“We’ve thrown everything at it, Your Excellency. Electricity, echion, quantum, thilium... It swallows it all up.”

“I don’t understand.”

Ammar took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter how much energy we throw at it, it all disappears. No sign of structural damage or weakening, it remains unchanged. When we analyze it, it still shows no spikes in energy. It doesn’t hum, doesn’t shine, doesn’t move... All it ever does is hover there without a sound. It is mind-baffling. I’ve never seen anything like it, Your Excellency. The egg’s capacity to absorb energy seems infinite.”

The Emperor frowned but said nothing. He turned his head and looked through the window at the sprawling city beyond.

“What do you make of it?” he asked softly.

“I don’t know, Your Excellency, and that is what’s so frightening about it.”

Nashadan Prime threw him a startled look.

“You are frightened?”

“Very much so.”

“Why?”

“The Drill... or, at least, this technology could destroy us.” He jumped out of his seat and started pacing back and forth like the nervous wreck he was. “It uses raw thilium in a way we humans have never used it. It doesn’t just power the thing, it’s merged into its surfaces. And... and it just pumps anything you throw at it. Any form of energy. Including thilium.”

“Then stop throwing energy at it.”

“That’s not the point, Your Excellency.”

“Then what is?”

“That thing has the power to disrupt everything we’ve built...” He pointed at the window and the bustling city beyond.

“How?”

“It doesn’t matter how much energy it pumps, it remains unaffected. For all we know, it could absorb all the thilium of this world without a hiccup.”

“Surely, you don’t believe that!”

“Well, no, but...” He stopped pacing and looked at the Emperor. “What if there are more of these devices out there? What if they’re weapons? What if aliens come one day with hundreds, or thousands of these things and pump all our power out?”

“Society would crumble,” muttered the Emperor.

The scientist nodded. “Depending on how many there are of these aliens, they could hit multiple worlds and, little by little, destroy our civilization.”

The Emperor, who was always one to worry about disruptive threats, perked up.

“How can we avoid it?”

“I don’t know that we can,” said Ammar in a small voice.

“Think, man! You’re the best among the best. Surely, you can think of something...”

Ammar walked up to the window and stared through it, silent for a moment. Little by little, he regained his senses and his control, and his mind went to work.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought of solutions.

He’d had time, over the years, to think of the problems technology could bring and of possible solutions. Of course, he’d only considered the dangers from within, not so much from without, but it did not change the end result—or the solution he foresaw.

He spun to face the Emperor.

“There is one thing we could do...”

“I am listening.”

“We need to slow down progress.” Ammar pointed over his shoulder at the capital. “We can’t pull all technology away, that would just bring about the collapse we want to avoid. But... if we slow things down, so that there is no more progress, we could then focus on changing things.”

“How?”

“We’ll need to refocus all our scientists on this... Well, almost all. Some would have to remain to maintain what we have left... to fix things that stop working, for instance. But we’ll need to select the best of our scientists to work with me on a new project. To prepare effective defenses against... against that thing.”

“The Drill?”

Ammar nodded. “And any other devices of the same sort. Because, make no mistake, sooner or later there will be more. We need to be prepared.”

The Emperor rather thought so as well.

“We can’t do this from within the Imperium—” continued the scientist.

“Why not?” interrupted the Emperor.

“Say we did, what would happen if an attack came? We’d be just as affected as every other world. We need to be isolated. Someplace where no one could find us.”

“Where did you have in mind?”

Ammar looked at the window again, though this time his eyes stared up at the stars.

“Beyond the rim,” he whispered.

In the months and years that followed, thousands of scientists were rounded up. Those who fled or were supposedly executed had, in fact, joined Ammar in a secret operation called Project Prism.

Some were really jailed—but those were all opponents of the Imperium who could not be trusted.

A few did flee, fearing for their lives. Some of these went to Derkanash and other worlds, hiding in plain sight. Others went elsewhere, but nothing is known about their fate.

The IAS was preserved, and a handful of scientists kept to maintain a functioning society.